BBC NORTH CHOOSES FAST

BBC NORTH have recently installed silver and purple FAST editing systems as part of a pioneering new transmission project.
They are using silver in conjunction with Skylink by Livewire to provide a complete edit, store and forward system to serve their local news output. The extensive news coverage provided across the region often means that sending tapes back to HQ in Leeds either to be edited or go to straight to air has not always been feasible, due to tight news schedules.
FAST silver has been installed in four BBC local radio stations - Hull, Grimsby, Leeds and Bradford. Local DJs acquire and edit news stories to be transmitted via ISDN back to Leeds for broadcast. Because silver is a MPEG-2 editor, the system has the flexibility the network needs, without sacrificing picture quality by cross-coding from other compression schemes.
In addition to the above locations, BBC North have also acquired two purple systems in Lincoln and Sheffield - which are connected to Energis high-bandwidth digital connections to Leeds and are also looking to have a similar installation in York.
The silver system in Hull has a dual role - it is also part of a pioneering service to provide the city with content for the world’s first ADSL TV network called Kingston Interactive Television (KIT). Stories edited on silver are encoded into MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 before being sent to a server at Kingston Communications. Subscribers to the service are able browse a screen similar to a webpage, choose a story and play it. Unlike traditional television, ADSL gives the viewer the ability to pause and even rewind the video clip, and because the service is completely interactive, all stories are archived so the user can watch what they want, when they want. (CD)